---
title: And before the King had time to reply, the Fire-son seized him in a… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: And before the King had time to reply, the Fire-son seized him in a tight embrace. Who acts: King, Fire son. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Snow-daughter and the Fire-son(25), with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Snow-daughter and the Fire-son(25), sentence 47

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And before the King had time to reply, the Fire-son seized him in a tight embrace.

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**Who acts:** King, Fire son · **What happens:** have, reply, seize · **To what, where:** King, tight embrace

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Snow-daughter and the Fire-son(25). The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (King, Fire son), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Parsed by Mova, not checked by a teacher.** This tree is Mova's own parse (the `en` model, on the CPU, when the site is built); it may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg640:36:47
# text = And before the King had time to reply, the Fire-son seized him in a tight embrace.
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
2	before	before	SCONJ	IN	_	5	mark	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	King	King	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
5	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	advcl	_	_
6	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
7	to	to	PART	TO	_	8	mark	_	_
8	reply	reply	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	acl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
11	Fire	Fire	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	13	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	son	son	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nsubj	_	_
14	seized	seize	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
15	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	obj	_	_
16	in	in	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
17	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
18	tight	tight	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	_
19	embrace	embrace	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	14	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | past | the King |  |  |  | time |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **reply** *speech: assert* | to-infinitive | the King *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn respond-113 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **seize** | past | the Fire son | King |  | a tight embrace |  |  | vn obtain-13.5.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent he=Theme |

<!-- .note -->
One row per clause the reader finds. «not said here»: a role filled from the clause above. «roles by»: a VerbNet class and frame when one fits the verb, else the reader's rules on the tree.

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**Text:** «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 640 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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